Heavy gunfire was reported at dawn on Tuesday in the occupied Shebaa Farms near the Israeli military site of Ruwayssat al-Alam.

According to the state-run National News Agency, the Israeli army opened sporadic fire on the outskirts of the occupied area for half an hour.

Israel and the United States are discussing a possible deal which could secure the release of U.S.-born Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard as a way of salvaging the crisis-hit peace talks.

According to two separate sources close to the talks, Pollard's release is being discussed in the context of efforts to secure an extension of the peace talks with the Palestinians, although no decision has yet been made.

The army said Monday it is to open a new investigation into the March 10 killing of a Jordanian judge by Israeli soldiers at a West Bank border crossing.

The probe will be carried out in coordination with Jordanian authorities, it said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was holding late-night talks with the leadership in Jerusalem and Ramallah on Monday on his latest mission to salvage the crisis-hit peace process.

He flew in from Paris for what was expected to be little more than a 15-hour visit to push both sides to resolve a lingering dispute over Palestinian prisoners which is threatening to derail the negotiations ahead of an April 29 deadline.

Jordan's King Abdullah II held talks on Monday with Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog on the Middle East peace process, a palace statement said.

"The king and the head of the Labor Party and member of the Knesset Isaac Herzog discussed efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians under the sponsorship of the United States," the palace said without elaborating.

The Israeli army planted on Monday a surveillance device along the technical fence to spy on Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The wireless device was installed near a post for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon on the Adaisseh road as Israeli warplanes overflew the area, NNA said.

Tel Aviv district court on Monday convicted former prime minister Ehud Olmert in a trial for corruption linked to a major property development in Jerusalem, Israeli media reports said.

The ruling marks the first time a former Israeli premier has been convicted of bribery in what has been called one of the worst corruption scandals in Israeli history.

The Israeli army has revamped a training program for army logistics cadets to prepare them for any future war in Lebanon or the Gaza Strip and to avoid a repeat of failures in the 2006 conflict with Hizbullah.

The Jerusalem Post said the two-week exercise placed around 180 cadets in simulated combat conditions, in a bid to avoid the same critical logistics failures experienced by the Israeli army in the July war of 2006 with Hizbullah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday slammed a U.N. rights body for a string of resolutions condemning the Jewish state despite a wave of rights abuses elsewhere in the region.

"At the end of last week, the U.N. Human Rights Council condemned Israel five times, at a time when the slaughter in Syria is continuing, innocent people are being hung in the Middle East and human rights are being eroded," he told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday it would be clear within "days" whether the crisis-hit peace talks would be extended beyond an April 29 deadline, local media reported.

His remarks, which were reported by several Israeli news websites, come as US officials work around the clock to prevent a collapse of the negotiations over a dispute about Palestinian prisoners.